‘American Gods’ Will Be Digging Deep Into Gaiman’s Mythology

Bryan Fuller hasn’t been too open about his adaptation of Neil Gaiman‘s ‘American Gods‘ but he is starting to let some information trickle out. Starz viewers might be in for a treat as in a recent interview, Fuller didn’t give specifics of what we can expect but did give some of the overall big picture ideas for the series. I have to say, they sound like he has caught a bit of the world building bug and I couldn’t be happier.

When asked about the direction of the series he had a very interesting response:

“Potentially what we’re looking at with American Gods is developing a Marvel Universe, not with superheroes but with gods. As detailed and integrated as the Marvel Universe is, and doing that with deities is something that excited all of us.”

Now, he isn’t talking about the idea of a cinematic universe here but of the overall connections between the characters. The difficulty though is how they could include those from ‘Anasi Boys’ when they don’t have the rights to that novel quite yet:

“Well, we don’t have the rights to Anansi Boys but we’re hoping that we will eventually.”

Considering that his run on ‘Hannibal‘ had him without the rights to ‘Silence of the Lambs’ we all know that he is used to working around source material in creative ways. Also just because films aren’t involved this doesn’t mean they couldn’t find ways to expand the series as:

“In success we may have spin-offs of American Gods that follow lesser gods in greater detail than you might in the main series, but there’s all sorts of potential for this show that we’re very excited about and I hope the audience is as enthusiastic as we are so we can bring those dreams to fruition.”

It sounds like he already has some big ideas lined up ahead of him if the stars align. Of course, he does have a few big ideas already as he talks about the writers on the show and what they have planned:

“American Gods is cruising along very nicely. It’s very exciting. There’s conversations in the writer’s room that we are having on this show that I’ve never had in a writer’s room before, because we’re actually given the ability to talk about fate and belief, and the rules which we use to navigate society being challenged in a fashion that is not anti-religion, but not necessarily letting religion off the hook entirely.

So it’s very important to us in the show to not be making fun of anybody for their religious beliefs because we all have some sort of belief-like thing in our brain that could arguably be delusional, whether it’s ghosts or gods or whatever superstition, black cats, walking under ladders, et cetera. So every one of us is prone to a delusion-like belief and that feels like it’s an exciting arena to talk about humanity in a way that I haven’t been able to do before on a show. Not since Star Trek really.”

In fact things are so big that he claims that after working with Gaiman that “the book American Gods is actually the Reader’s Digest version of the story.”

I can’t wait to see what he puts together for the big screen.

What are your thoughts on ‘American Gods’? Are you happy to see Fuller back in the saddle after ‘Hannibal’? Which Gods are you most looking forward to see him bringing to life on the small screen? Share your thoughts below!

Stuart Conover

Stuart Conover is a father, husband, blogger, published author, geek, entrepreneur, editor of Horror Tree, horror fanatic, science fiction junkie, lives in a world of comics, and a casual gamer (all of this when his wife lets him of course.) He fell in love with science fiction and horror at the same time while watching the movie Alien at probably far too young of an age while still being extremely impressionable and has been happily obsessed with both since! Around the same time, he had also developed an unhealthy addiction to comic books that continues to this day!Want to talk about anything geeky? Reach out on Twitter - @StuartConover